SLIEVE BLOOM: 157-5
Batting: Sai 27*, Naj 25*, Sahil 25*
Bowling: B.Shareef 3/13, N O'Reilly 1/16
HALVERSTOWN OAKS: 103-9
Batting: S Hayes 20, A Williamson 17*, G O'Shea 16, A Singh 12
Bowling: Sahil 2/5, Naj 1/4
It was always going to be a tough ask for the Oaks against a visiting team gearing up for their Division 14 campaign. The Oaks team featured a number of debutants on a weekend that saw 33 different players take to the field for Halverstown’s three teams.
The gulf in quality was evident despite the Oaks’ best efforts in the field, as we bowled first. Despite their undoubted ability with the bat, and the difficulty our bowlers had in dislodging them, we restricted the visitors to just eight boundaries in their full innings. Their running was exceptional though, and saw them rack up runs rapidly. Despite their captain’s fears that their run rate was under par, as a series of batters each reached the retirement mark of 25, they posted a very imposing 157 runs off 150 balls. We managed to break partnerships towards the latter half of the innings, after an earlier run out. Niall took his often customary wicket, caught by a juggling Bhavik – one of three catches he took, the other two coming off Bilal Shareef’s bowling, two of Bilal’s three wickets.
As we tried to chase down the required 158, we started slowly, and were managing to keep out their opening pace bowlers. However, the initial steadiness was rocked by losing our first four wickets by way of run outs to leave us 18-4 in the seventh over. Avtar’s solid 12 helped bring some stability to the middle order, particularly his partnership (24) with Brian McAllister. Our Numbers 7, 8 and 9 added the biggest bulk of our runs (Stuart, myself and Andy), collectively adding 53 runs. Andy was still there at the end alongside debutant Arun Nair, as we reached 103 runs.
Our score, at a run rate above 4 per over against a team of this standard was a decent outcome in the circumstances. The outcome of the game was never really in doubt, but the individual contests were certainly competitive. If the Oaks play this well every game this summer, we’ll certainly have a few wins under our belts by the end of the season.
Written by Gerard O'Shea